[Libs-Or] OLA Quarterly Author Showcase: Rich Wandschneider

[Charles Wood]

Rich Wandschneider is Director of a special library in Joseph, Oregon, that
honors Alvin M. Josephy as a historian of and advocate for American
Indians, in addition to his many other remarkable accomplishments.  Please
download and read his latest article, “The Alvin M. and Betty Josephy
Library of Western History and Culture,” here:
https://commons.pacificu.edu/olaq/vol23/iss3/10/.

>From Rich’s article, “Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce died in exile on the
Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State in 1904, after being
rebuffed on two trips to Wallowa County, Oregon, to convince the local
citizenry to allow him to buy land. He asked to be allowed to live out his
days in the “land of winding waters” that held the bones of his father and
his people. Denied, he lived out his days on the Colville, befriended by
University of Washington professor Edmond Meany, and famously photographed
by Meany’s friend, Edward Sheriff Curtis. A few short years after that
Wallowa visit, living in a tipi on the Colville Reservation, Chief
Joseph—Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt—“died of a broken heart.” The New York Sun
announced that “the most famous Indian in America” was gone.

In 1965, Alvin M. Josephy Jr.’s Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the
Northwest brought Joseph and the Nez Perce back to national attention.
While working on that book, Josephy and his family fell in love with the
Wallowa Country and bought a small ranch. Throughout his long working
career, boxes of books and research material would be packed and shipped
from the Josephy home in Greenwich, Connecticut to Joseph, Oregon, and then
back the other way. The Josephy Library is based on material from those
home libraries in Greenwich and Joseph, with special attention to Josephy’s
own writings and to the history and culture of Indians and the West.

The library is housed in the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture on Main
Street in the town of Joseph (“Joseph” and “Josephy” are only accidentally
and serendipitously related). We tell the Nez Perce story—and other stories
of Indian and Western history—with books and journals, guest speakers, blog
posts, private conversations and presentations to local students,
residents, guests, and groups from across the world.”

Please read on.  You won’t be disappointed.

Thank you,
Charles Wood
OLA Communications
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20180329/56b91a64/attachment.html>